Sonya: but

Showing posts with label but. Show all posts

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Jesus spent 40 days in the Desert I only spent 21 but here’s what began to happen

I was in the woods, on 5 acres bordering several National forests, Northern Wisconsin was the place.

It was an old, dusty, spider and spider web filled mini-camper, just enough for one person to sleep in with a small cook stove and sleeping bag. No phone, computer, radio, TV, just a handful of books and quest to reach deep down within myself, to find myself, God, Nature ….whatever may be. I was dropped off and left there, not to see another soul for another 3 weeks.

By day 2, the ego/mind was going crazy lacking the constant stimulation from smart phones, TV’s, roommates, work/co-workers, society, etc. Yet I was aware of the “going crazy.” I tempered this w/ meditation near the camp fire.

The first couple of nights, there was fear in the pitch black night due to the visiting critters, the fact that the camper was used by bats as a shelter as well, and with the unknowing of what can be outside of the camper. I tempered the fear with prayer, observation, meditation.

Around day 5, I was settled with stillness, nature, silence, with myself, the mind settling down w/ lack of stimulation, and fear was no more. All I could do is just Be, Flow w/ what is. I fasted during the days, and ate a handful of grains, nuts, or a small fruit at night.

Somewhere around day 8-9, things began to make sense. Society seemed artificial. We’ve gone so far from Flow/Being and live in fear, ego, and addiction to stimulation. I was deep within myself, fine with myself. I was in a sense Home, deprogramming from societal ways.

Day 12-14, the tree’s began to glow. I hugged the tree’s and acknowledged the Life of nature. Squirrels, wild turkey’s, deer began to come near and check out what this odd human was doing there. As the days past, they would get closer and closer, having less fear of me.

Day 16, I found the core me. I was fine no matter what. Can face anything, feared nothing, and understood existence as Being, as Flow, as interconnected to me. Even the books I brought with did not matter to what reality taught me there in nature. The fasting tempered the lusts of the body for sexual release. The idea of sex, porn, lust w/ beautiful sexual women lost meaning and I saw through it, discovering many connections between the body and mind.

Day 18. There are Universes revolving above my head. I’ve had this before, but it really sank in now. The majority of stuff is irrelevant in the big picture. I have closure and detachment in my life and if it’s time to physically die, today is a good day for that. I’m open to whatever Flow & Being has in store for a tiny grain of sand like me. Fear is let go of, and the grand scheme of things runs the show.

Day 21. In Love with this type of existence. I’ve reached a part of myself and existence that I never knew was there, but always had a hunch about. Considering monasteries now or permanently living like this. However it’s time to say goodbye and get back to society, considering I still have some familial and financial obligations to take care of.

A friend picks me up and we go to a pizza joint to eat. Everything seems artificial, commercialized, and corporate/government ran. Still I see the Flow/Being within society, but it’s covered up, manipulated by ego/mind to fit it’s own molds and concepts of how things should be. In retrospect, everything now looks slow, lacking, dirty, superficial. The truth is there, but most don’t see the sublime. Rushing and wrapped in roles, the present moment is entirely missed, instead people have replaced this with; “what might one day be if only I can ____(fill in the blank)!”

This was a set of diary posts from my 21 day solo retreat in the woods. I can only imagine the further changes that would occur if I was to go the full 40 like Jesus did.

All that to say, that there is something to, letting go of the bias bubbles we’ve all created by being wrapped up in the necessities of catering to society and our own ego’s. By tempering that, with going into solitude, into the wild for a set amount of time, that bias bubble pops, and for that set amount of time, you find certain things about yourself, nature, Love, life, existence, that you would not otherwise find, things that remain with you for the rest of your life, things that the majority of people may not be aware of, but are most definitely there.

Food for thought perhaps, or the ramblings of a madman.

(This was originally published on AboveTopSecret.com)

Monday, October 31, 2016

The internet is eating your memory but something better is taking its place

In the years since the world started going digital, one of the big changes has been that we don’t need to remember very much. Why risk forgetting a partner’s birthday or a dinner date with a close friend when you can commit the details to your computer, laptop, smartphone or tablet and get a reminder at the appropriate time?

Paul McCartney gave a useful insight into this in an interview over the summer. He claimed that back in the 1960s The Beatles may have written dozens of songs that were never released because he and John Lennon would forget the songs the following morning.

"We would write a song and just have to remember it. And there was always the risk that we’d just forget it. If the next morning you couldn’t remember it - it was gone."

How different to the way he records now then, when he can "form the thing, have it all finished, remember it all, go in pretty quickly and record it".

With technology now well ingratiated into our everyday life, researchers have been investigating the lasting impact that it is having on the way that we learn and remember information. Some research has suggested that our reliance on technology and the internet is leading to “digital amnesia”, where individuals are no longer able to retain information as a result of storing information on a digital device.

In one study, for example, 1,000 consumers aged 16 and over were asked about their use of technology. It found that 91 percent of them depended on the internet and digital devices as a tool for remembering. In another survey of 6000 people, the same study found that 71 percent of people could not remember their children’s phone numbers and 57 percent could not remember their work phone number. This suggests that relying on digital devices to remember information is impairing our own memory systems.

The upgrade

But before we mourn this apparent loss of memory, more recent studies suggest that we may be adapting. One such study from 2011 conducted a series of experiments looking at how our memories rely on computers. In one of them, participants were asked to type a series of statements, such as "an ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain".

Half of them were told that their documents would be saved, and half were told that they would not. Everyone was then tested to see if they could remember what they had typed. Those who had been told their work would be saved were significantly poorer at remembering the information.

In another experiment, participants were asked to type a series of statements that would be saved in specific folders. They were then asked to recall the statements and the folders in which the files were located. Overall, they were better at recalling the file locations than the statements. The conclusion from the two experiments? Technology has changed the way we organise information so that we only remember details which are no longer available, and prioritise the location of information over the content itself.

Group mind

This idea that individuals prioritise where information is located has led some researchers to propose that digital devices and the internet have become a form of transactive memory. This idea, which dates back to the 1980s, refers to a group memory that is superior to that of any individual.

According to this account, individuals can collectively store and distribute information using a shared store of knowledge. This store of knowledge means that individuals can access details that they may not know themselves by knowing that another individual remembers it, thus enhancing what information is available to them by communicating with other people. In the same way, individuals develop a transactive memory with the internet and rely on it for information by focusing on where details are located rather than the details themselves.

More recent research has extended this line of work and found that saving information on a computer not only changes how our brains interact with it, but also makes it easier to learn new information. In a study published last year, the participants were presented with two files that each contained a list of words. They were asked to memorise both lists. Half of the participants were asked to save the first file before moving on to the next list, while the others had to close it without saving.

The experiment revealed that the participants recalled significantly more information from the second file if they had saved the previous file. This suggests that by saving or 'offloading' information on to a computer, we are freeing up cognitive resources that enable us to memorise and recall new information instead.

In sum, anyone worrying that technology is wrecking one of our most important abilities should take some reassurance from these findings. It doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no cause for concern: for instance McCartney said in the same interview that the songs in the 1960s that did make it to the recording studio were the most memorable ones. So it is possible that the lack of technology made The Beatles better songwriters.

But it may be that just as oral storytelling was usurped by the written word, having digital devices to outsource our memories means that it is no longer necessary for us to try to remember everything. And if we can now remember more with a little help from our technology friends, that is arguably a great step forward. Rather than worrying about what we have lost, perhaps we need to focus on what we have gained.

Saima Noreen, Lecturer in Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London.

This article was originally published by The Conversation. Read the original article.